Abstract
As 2012 drew to a close, 4,486 American service members died in Iraq and 2,165 died in Afghanistan. Each death has a funeral and many of them are public and well attended. Patriot Guard Riders (PGR) is a documentary about three desperate but intersecting groups at military funerals: service members killed and their families; a religious group protesting at the funerals; and the PGR motorcyclists buffering service member loved ones and attendees from the protestors.
PGR is a powerful and provocative film because it is able to juxtapose and subvert two traditional images simultaneously. First, the image of “biker” as security at large gatherings is tainted by one significant event caught on film: the Hells Angels serving as security for an open-air concert featuring the Rolling Stones at the Altamont Motor Speedway in California on December 6, 1969. They beat a concertgoer to death with pool cue sticks. PGR obliterates the stigma and reputation of “bikers” being violent and antisocial. PGR do capitalize on their intimidating look but use nonviolent passive resistance (perhaps some symbolic violence) with their bodies, flags, and loud motorcycles to buffer the families from the protestors and their extreme messages launched at the funeral party and the media which often attends these events. Second, all religious groups are traditionally supportive of bereavement and the grief of others. However, in recent years, a number of small but vocal religious groups have gained national and international attention for extreme views and behavior. For a few years on September 11, the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida called for the burning of Qurans. The Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas, is featured in PGR. The church is comprised mostly of a single family and they picket the funerals of service members with placards proclaiming their hatred of homosexuals—notably one that headlines their web site titled God Hates Fags.
PGR
The next scene features the PGR perspective of the members preparing for and rehearsing for a funeral of a First Lieutenant killed in Afghanistan. The scene features an interview with the deceased soldier’s mother and outsider shots at the funeral with families and friends. Most interesting in this scene is an in-depth expose of a PGR member named Conan. A bald and robust man, he is in many ways stereotypical of the rugged biker. Yet he is exceedingly soft spoken, caring, concerned, and courteous. He is a former US Marine and lives in Tacoma, Washington with his wife and two sons who are all highlighted in the film sharing their experiences of participating fully in the PGR. These and other scenes depict how children are directly being socialized into the various movements including attending the funerals of their deceased father. A second PGR member from Portland, Oregon, is profiled. His name is Cabbie and he is a Vietnam veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome. He rides with PGR in WWII veteran funerals. A memorable part of this scene is the cultural institutionalization of the PGR. They have created personalized commemorative coins and they are shown presenting a coin to a family of an eighty-three-year-old WWII veteran. This new ritual of PGR members participating in funerals is regimented and normative and now inserted regularly into the more traditional features of a military funeral. Further, both Conan and Cabbie are perhaps reflective of Louis Zurcher’s 1 notion of an ephemeral role—a temporary or ancillary position-related behavior enacted in everyday life to satisfy social psychological needs incompletely satisfied in their more dominant roles in life. Ephemeral roles are usually enacted based on previous full time roles such as soldiering. The scene concludes with Conan, Cabbie, and a bereaved mother providing their perspective on the Westboro Baptist Church group who are featured in the next scene.
The next portion of the documentary is perhaps one of the best—definitely provocative in terms of challenging sensibilities. It is profile of the Westboro Baptist Church members. It shows their backstage world of family life where home life and protest life are intermixed. The normality of the extreme views commingled with discussions about homework, grades, a Parent–Teacher Association meeting, and directions to the demonstrations are compelling in their mundanity. Interviews are conducted with the mother—Ms. Phelps-Roper (Mr. Phelps, the founder of the church is never shown in the film) and the children of the Phelps family of Topeka, Kansas, where they appear to demonstrate daily when not protesting a funeral somewhere in the United States. They appear painfully normal and Ms. Phelps-Roper is compellingly logical and articulate in her ideology. The film does a terrific service by carrying the reader from home life and walking us through pre and during demonstration ultimately providing the bystander perspective and then to the post-demonstration breakdown.
The next scene returns to the Indiana family and works through how and why their son Jonathan joined the military. There is an interview with his former manager at the local Pizza Hut. The manager provides a cogent view on high school kids coming through his restaurant—those who go to college and those who enlist in the military. The scene continues to move back and forth between time and space at this point. It features both adult females and males and children participating in PGR attended funerals. They discuss the military, the role of the military, the all-volunteer force, the nation at war, and death and dying. There is a subtle challenge here suggesting the film is perhaps antiwar. Further, we learn how PGR learns about casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan—casually through e-mail alerts. We then are returned back to Jonathan. Photographs and video clips of his brief military career both in the United States and in Iraq are spliced in including taped footage of his predeployment party with him rapping about his possible death while drunk on champagne. Finally, there is a scene of the funeral of a SFC Hickman killed in Afghanistan. It provides personal views of his casket, his wife, their three small boys, and PGR members presenting tokens to the family members. The scene closes with Jonathan’s mom riding her motorcycle with the PGR.
A long scene returns the viewer to the Vietnam War with clips from the era and interviews with Vietnam veteran PGR members. They discuss their experiences returning home and the harsh treatment of veterans from that period. They view the PGR work as a source of rectification for past treatments of veterans. It is both personal and social for them. This scene provides excellent examples of comparisons and contrasts between Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prior to the closing scene, there is a short perspective on the First Amendment, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Supreme Court decision on protesting at military funerals. Of interest are new buffer laws designed to hold back protestors from funerals.
Patriot Guard Rider illuminates the intersection of religion, the military, and an American subcultural tradition of “bikers” during a time of war. In addition to these social contexts, the film highlights a number of social psychological concepts such as social influence, the social role of members of the military/veteran community, and it addresses questions of social norms. Another subtext of the film is the socialization of children—children are represented among the bereaved family members of soldiers, the PGR, and among Westboro Baptist Church members.
There are some weak points to the film. Some may challenge the statement in the opening moments introducing Westboro Baptist as a hate group. They have committed no hate crimes. This would make for an interesting debate point in class. Additionally, the film is somewhat disjointed. There is less a linear story line and more a jumping around in times and spaces which may be difficult to follow during an initial viewing. An instructor will want to review the film and take copious notes prior to assigning to a class. Overall, the film would be excellent for classes dealing with death and dying, military sociology, sociology of war and peace, armed forces and society, sociology of religion, social moments, social psychology, and culture and society among others.